The Sound of A Baby's Tears

The sound of a child's crying is a gift from God. You may not think so at 3:00 AM in the morning but a parent bonds with that sound, in a room full of crying children a loving parent can identify their baby. This is one of the things that God uses to bond us to our babies. We can soon identify what the problem is from the sound of their tears, the squall of hunger, the howls of pain, the heartbreaking sobs of a tiny broken heart, even the yelps of boredom. Decades later when your babies are grown and considering having their own babies, and you hear a baby crying that sounds like your child sounded so long ago, it all comes back. Your head jerks toward the sound and your heart starts racing, concern wrinkles your brow before you realize that the baby of yours that used to make such a sound is at the counter paying for lunch.

I've been in situations in my life that I would rather not have been in; I've watched a live 500 lb bomb drop nearly 6 feet to the concrete just a few steps away and watching it fall I knew that if it had exploded I'd never even hear it, I was in South Korea when Kim Il Sung died, I heard the threats of war from Radio Pyongyang and wondered if I'd live to see the sun rise. I've been broken down on the side of the road in sub zero temperatures on a closed highway with only a light jacket. But none of that effected me as much as the picture above.

On 12/14/12 a madman murdered 20 kindergarten children in Newtown CT. The scene above shows elementary school children being led to safety. I was working remotely on a problem on a cable system in Florida when this picture was published on the internet. Look at the young girl in the middle, the one with her hair in bangs and in a blue shirt, the one crying as if her heart is being ripped out by a selfish nightmare of a human being. She looks so much like my daughter looked at that age. Her expression is the same as the heartbreaking expression I've seen in the past, the echos of my babies tears came roaring back across the gulf of time.

Immediately my heart froze, my brain ceased processing the information coming across my computer screen, the voices in my headset became meaningless babble. I was only astute enough to hit mute on my phone before breaking down in tears. I knew my baby was fine, I knew my baby was thousands of miles from the scene of that nightmare, I knew that this brokenhearted little girl was safe and in the loving arms of her family by the time I saw this picture, but every time I looked at that little girl I was inconsolable, the echo of my baby's tears filled my head and my heart. I was completely incapacitated  until I was able to talk my baby girl on the phone later that evening. Until then, every time I saw this picture I wept.

I pray that soon after that picture was taken that sorrowful little girl soon found the warmth and security of her daddy's arms around her, and my heart aches so horribly for those 40 mothers and fathers that can never hold their little darling ever again. My soul aches for those poor people. I pray that each and every one was able to say "I love you" to their baby over orange juice and Captain Crunch that morning, and I pray that each parent has tuned to Jesus for comfort in their agony. To have your baby snatched away so horribly is unthinkable, and on such a scale this is a national wound that needs to be bound.

However I can see on the internet the predictable rage brought on by such shock and of course the eternal question "How could God have let this happen?" Don't you think that God knows how we feel? He had to watch His own son, my adopted brother, tortured, whipped, humiliated, nailed to a cross and left to die all for the sin of doing what He was told, all the while His followers stood and watched in mute silence. Do you honestly think that a God who loves us so much that he allowed His own son to be murdered in such a brutal fashion to pay for our sins wants us to feel the same horror He felt as Jesus died in agony?

The proper question is "How could WE let this happen?" Are these children not all of our children? WE as an educated society chose to educate these children in a public building. WE as a news addicted society know that there are sick individuals walking the earth looking to do such a thing. WE as a secular society turned our back on the God that gave us the brains and the desire to protect our children. Was the shooter mentally disabled? Why wasn't be being cared for by medical professionals? Was he just a bad person? Why didn't society discipline him? Was he demon possessed? Why didn't his church seek out a deliverance ministry? Wasn't he a member of a church? Don't think for a moment I'd be surprised if I find out he's not.

In all the white noise and babble coming from the mouth of man during the aftermath of this horror I find that only God's word is meaningful and calms my heavy heart...

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. (Prov 3:5-6)

We first need to find strength in the Lord and do what He commands to be done, to provide His comfort to those who grieve:

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2Cor1:3-4)

As for the little ones? In God's mercy they didn't suffer and I know that Jesus, my brother, has gathered those poor babies to him, along with all the other little ones we've sacrificed on the altar of Political Correctness before they even could draw breath

4 “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 “And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; 6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matt 18:4-6)

I look at the picture once more and I can feel the tears start welling up in memory of the sound of my baby's tears, but I know she was safe, thousands of miles away. Then I remember that she was teaching her own kindergarten class, she would have been... and I can feel the tears come again.